Save the date for our fall FPR conference at Baylor!
“The Tacit Dimension of Shop Class.” Mars Hill Audio is publishing an audio version of this classic Mark Mitchell essay. As a reminder, FPR readers can sign up for a free FPR affiliate membership at Mars Hill Audio.
“An Obit for Journalism.” Andrey Mir takes stock of how journalists abandoned objectivity as a standard and where this is likely to lead: “The decline of trust in the media didn’t occur because journalists adhered to the ‘view from nowhere’ for too long, but rather because they enthusiastically abandoned any attempts even to simulate objectivity, hoping to profit from moral stances. It is a crowded market now, and one in which journalists may still retain some influence: in a world where digital denizens are still learning how to manipulate their audiences, journalists are ahead of the curve. But institutional journalism as we knew it, with its twentieth-century professional standards and codes, is dead.” (Recommended by Ralph Wood.)
“Why Tariffs Are Good.” Michael Lind defends tariffs as necessary political tools: “The chaotic and inconsistent nature of Trump’s second-term policy to date can be criticized. But when it comes to tariffs as a tool of economic statecraft in general, the gap between establishment rhetoric and actual government practice is big enough to drive a Chinese EV through.”
“Ghosts and Dolls.” Paul Griffiths compares the long history of prejudging and dismissing words written by humans to the tendency to dismiss computer generated words today. I don’t agree with all his distinctions here, but Griffiths is always worth reading: “The formation undergone by artificial intelligences is different, deeply so, from any that a human person can undergo. They have read more than we, they interact with what they have read differently, they compose in ways distinct from our habits of composition, and so on. These differences, if contemplated even for a moment, suggest that their literary works will be unpredictably different from ours—they may show us how to do things with words that would otherwise not have occurred to us, in very much the same way that living creatures evolved elsewhere than on our planet might show us forms that life can take that we would not otherwise have imagined, and from which we can learn things otherwise unlearnable.”
“Something Wicked This Way Comes.” Daniel Klein notes that while Tocqueville saw “soft despotism” as bad, he also warns that what tends to follow it will be even worse: “The words hit home today, when political forces so often seem so unconnected to enduring understandings of the good and what advances it. In the past, political leaders more often invoked substantive ideas to explain how their policy agenda advanced good ends. Today, when politicians use words like ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’ it is unconvincing, and instead, we hear a passing stream of short-lived slogans and watchwords.”
“Fury as Defra Confirms Sudden Closure of SFI Applications.” Farming UK report on the latest chaos in Britain’s farming programs: “The government has confirmed it will stop accepting new applications for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme, a move which has sparked fury. The sudden and unplanned nature of the scheme’s closure, announced on Tuesday evening (11 March) without warning, is set to shake the industry’s confidence even further.”
“We Wash our Trash to Repent for Killing God.” David Heinemeier Hansson describes how his fellow secular Danes have found new religious rituals: “I’m not religious, but I’m starting to think it’d be nicer to spend a Sunday morning in the presence of the Almighty than to keep washing trash as pagan replacement therapy.”
“Faith Among the Fractures.” Mark Clavier addresses himself to some fundamental questions: “How, then, do we bear faithful witness in an age marked by tragedy, fear, and technological hubris? This question has been weighing on me. When I’m out walking the dogs, or speaking with those I minister to, I’m struck by how many feel anxious about the uncertainty of it all and impotent to do anything about it. The world hasn’t felt this febrile since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but instead of hope, many are gripped by despair. So, I find myself wondering: what does it mean to be faithful, not just successful, in a world slipping beyond our control?”
“The First Task of the Church.” In this excerpt from a new book published by Plough, Stanley Hauerwas describes the gift the church can be: “The most interesting, creative political solutions we Christians have to offer our troubled society are not new laws, advice to policymakers, or increased funding for social programs – although we may support such efforts from time to time. The most creative social strategy we have to offer is to be the church. Here we show the world a manner of life that it can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.”
“Glenn Gould’s God Complex.” R. J. Stove describes how a great concert performer became remarkably bizarre: “Oliver Cromwell famously and commendably told his crazier rivals, ‘I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken.’ Gould was never mistaken, and no one exceeded Gould’s persistence in notifying the planet of his inerrancy.”
“The Man Tackling the Masculinity Crisis.” Sho Baraka visits Detroit to understand how Jason Wilson is helping boys there grow up into healthy men: “American manhood gives men license to ‘hunt, fight, and procreate,’ as Wilson puts it, but he wants to put smiles and tears on the faces of warriors who have only known how to be intimidating. In a world where angry and frustrated dilettantes pontificate theory into podcast mics, Wilson trains young men to become emotionally healthy and to channel their emotions into physical discipline. Wilson invites these boys into his life. They know his wife, they’ve sparred with his son, they eat at his house. They witness his confidence around kings and his veneration of the lowly (Ps. 138:6).”
